Sunday, May 20, 2012

Shoulda Started Wedman

What movies do you know by heart? I don’t mean the ones you
remember really well or from which you are able to recall some of the catchy lines. I mean the
movies where you can repeat all the dialogue without turning on the subtitles.

For me, the movies I know by heart go back to my youth when
I had all the time in the world to watch my favorite movies over and over
again. I caught one of my by heart movies on TV today (thank you GMC –
uplifting entertainment, read between the lines on that one!) and was
immediately able to recite the lines despite not having seen the movie in
years.

My by heart movies are Little Big League, The Parent Trap,
and The American President. I loved them all the first time I saw them and I
have not outgrown them. Little Big League is the kind of movie that does not
get made very often. It is a family movie that is not animated and though the hero
does not win in the end it is incredibly uplifting. Little Big League has
lines that I can throw out to my brother to this day and he will know exactly
to what I am referring. The homework scene is priceless, as is the running
riddle: A cowboy rides into town on Friday, stays two days and leaves on
Friday. How does he do it?

The Parent Trap – the reboot – is so much fun that I would
have loved it even if I hadn’t been brought up on the Haley Mills original.
Reboots are often attempts by the movie studio to reuse popular titles and avoid the risk that comes with original storytelling. In
this case, the reboot was just as good if not better than the original.

The American President is a pretty typical romantic comedy: unlikely pair, barriers to staying together, and ultimately breaking down those barriers. What separates the The American
President from run of the mill rom-coms is the excellent dialogue from Aaron Sorkin and the rich
backdrop of White House politics. Each time I watch it I pride myself on
remembering President Shepard’s climactic speech.

There is also a whole roster of movies that are close to by heart movies
including The Sandlot, A League of Their Own, and Rookie of the Year. Yes, I
love baseball movies.

This is the point at which if anybody read this blog other than me that I would say please use the comments to tell me what movies you know by heart but since it's just me reading this I'll just tell myself what I already know.

On the off chance that anybody else reads this, the answer is: the horse's name is Friday.